


A Crowded House

by houdini74



Series: Clint and Marcy [9]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Boys In Love, Committed Relationship, Family Feels, M/M, New Year's Party, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21631030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houdini74/pseuds/houdini74
Summary: David and Patrick go to Clint and Marcy's for New Year's. David meets Patrick's extended family for the first time.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Clint and Marcy [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1377373
Comments: 44
Kudos: 395





	A Crowded House

**Author's Note:**

> Some holiday fluff and feelings from Marcy's POV.

Marcy surveys the crowded living room. Her four sisters and their husbands easily fill the small space but this year many of Patrick’s cousins have also come for their New Year’s Day party. Every available chair and pillow is taken and every nook and cranny is crammed with people. She and Clint have given this party every year since Patrick was little but this year’s party is the biggest one in years. This is Patrick’s first party since he moved to Schitt’s Creek and curiosity about David has spread through the family over the past six months. 

Across the room, Clint is talking to her sister Melissa. Behind Melissa’s back, his eyes meet hers and he gives her a pained look. No doubt Melissa is telling him about her latest multi-level marketing scheme. She grins back and gives him a small shrug. He’ll have to make his own excuses.

A warm laugh pulls her attention to the far corner of the room. Her breath catches at the sound that is both foreign and familiar. Her son talking to his cousin Emily, he’s laughing loudly, the way he used to do when he was younger. She’d forgotten that he knew how to laugh like that. A toothy smile splits his face when he catches her watching and she smiles back at him.

There’s no sign of David. She hopes this hasn’t been too much for him. She knows his flamboyant exterior hides an ocean of insecurities. Contrary to his dramatics, he needs time to himself when things are too much. The party has only been underway for an hour. If David is hiding already...a sliver of worry threads through her. She looks at Patrick again. His relaxed demeanor takes away most of her anxiety. The sixth sense that seems to tie the two of them together would let her son know if something wasn’t right with his fiance. Wherever David has disappeared to, Patrick, at least, isn’t worried about it.

She picks up an empty chip bowl from the coffee table and carries it into the kitchen. David leans against the kitchen counter, looking at his phone. She can just hear a tinny voice coming from the phone.

“...and Ted made me pet a tortoise!” David’s face screws up in horror. Marcy laughs to herself as Alexis continues. “But his post on Instagram got more likes than any of his others, so it was totally worth it.”

She sets the bowl on the counter and David glances up from his phone. “Do you want to say hi to Marcy?”

“Of course, David!” David turns the phone around and Marcy can see Alexis, her face relaxed and less made up than she remembers staring back from the small screen. “Hi, Mar...Mrs Brewer.”

“Hi Alexis, you can call me Marcy.” David shakes his head vigorously, making her laugh again. “How are the Galapagos?”

“It’s sooo fun. Is my brother behaving himself? I remember this time at Ashley Simpson’s New Year’s party when we all came into the kitchen and David was up on the counter with...” 

“Okay, we have to go now.” David turns the phone away from her. “Byyyeee. Happy New Year.”

“But, David…”

“Byyyeee. I’ll tell mom and dad you called.” David ends the call, making a disgusted face as he sees the amused glint in her eye.

She pulls a new bag of chips out of the cupboard and empties it into the bowl. “When does Alexis get back?”

“End of January.” David rolls his eyes at his sister’s absence, but Marcy isn’t fooled. She knows David misses his sister terribly.

“Is this okay? I know it’s a lot...all these people you don’t know.” There was a time when she never would have asked him so directly, but after a lifetime of hiding, she’s trying to be as open as possible with her son and his fiance. 

David’s smile reassures her. “It’s good. It’s just...how is your family so large? Also, your sister wants me to sell some sort of nail polish at the store?” David’s voice is pitchy and she can tell he’s worried about offending her.

“Yeah, you don’t want to do that. Melissa’s always into one sales scheme or another.”

“Oh, okay.” David smiles at her as he takes some chips out of the bowl. “I don’t remember anyone’s name.” 

She grins and leans close to him. “Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I can’t remember either.”

The laughter bursts out of him. As though they had summoned him, Patrick appears in the doorway. “What are you two doing in here?” Patrick leans on the counter next to David, pressing his arm against his fiance’s. David’s shoulders relax as they lean against each other as though there’s a tiny part of himself that he holds back for everyone except Patrick.

She can’t help teasing her son. “I was just going to tell David about your first trip to see Santa.”

Patrick pushes himself off of the counter. “Oh, that’s not necessary.” Before he can leave, David pulls him back against his body, draping his long arms around Patrick’s shoulders.

“No, I want to hear.” David rests his chin on Patrick’s shoulder.

“Well, Patrick was about four that year and Bill Hanson from down the street was Santa.” Patrick rolls his eyes at her, but he leans more closely into David as she tells the story. “Bill’s a big guy, but he doesn’t have a beard. As soon as we put Patrick on his lap, he reached out with both hands and pulled on his fake beard. And then he burst into tears when it came off.” Patrick smiles ruefully and shakes his head while David laughs beside him. “Everyone was laughing so he climbed off of Bill’s lap and ran off with the beard. He crawled away to hide in the coat closet with everyone’s dirty boots and got it all muddy. We had to have a beardless Santa that year.” 

“Aw, poor baby.” David kisses Patrick’s temple.

“And then there was the time…”

“Okay. I think people probably want more potato chips.” Patrick scoops up the bowl on the counter and hands it to her with a gentle shove. On her way out of the kitchen, she glances back to see Patrick turn in David’s arms, both of them with eyes only for each other.

Potato chips successfully delivered, she sits on the couch next to her sister Linda. 

“When you told us about him. I just wasn’t sure about this David Rose.” Linda leans closer and whispers, conspiratorially. “I googled him, you know.” Marcy tenses, ready to defend David from any criticism whether it be the color of his wardrobe or his errant past. Linda giggles. Marcy can’t remember the last time she’s heard her older sister giggle. “But he’s such a sweet boy. He told me I should wear my hair down because of the way it frames my face.”

Marcy tries to imagine the conversation that David must have had with Linda in order for her to call him ‘sweet.’ Try as she might, she can’t quite picture it. “Clint and I are very fond of David.” Fond is maybe underselling it a bit, she adores David and she would walk across broken glass to give thanks for the joy he brings Patrick. 

“And those eyes...Patrick is very lucky.” Linda gives her a sideways look and for a second they’re back in high school, talking about cute boys. 

“That’s my future son-in-law you’re talking about.” She’s trying for severity, but her laughter gives her away and she and Linda lean into each other, giggling like schoolgirls.

“Aunt Marcy, have you seen Patrick?” Caleb, her sister Laura’s youngest, interrupts their laughter. “I want to show him my hockey video.” Caleb is in his first year of junior hockey. If everything goes well, there’s a good chance he’ll be drafted at the end of next season.

“I think he’s in the kitchen helping David.” Based on the look on Patrick’s face as she was leaving the kitchen, she’s pretty sure she knows what kind of help David is getting.

Caleb lowers himself to the floor beside her with the easy athleticism of a seventeen-year-old. “He’s different than he used to be.”

She smiles at Caleb. “He is, isn’t he?”

“It’s not like before. He always seemed like he was trying too hard.” She knows Caleb doesn’t mean anything by it, but his words cut through her. Caleb is just a teenager. That he could see what she had missed makes her heart hurt. 

“David makes him really happy.”

“Yeah.” Caleb scrambles to his feet. “I’m going to show him my video.” He heads towards the kitchen, calling Patrick’s name.

On the other side of the room, Clint has escaped from Melissa. He leans against the door frame to the front hall, a glass of wine in one hand. His eyes meet hers and she smiles, making her way to him through the press of their family. Clint wraps his free arm around her shoulders and presses a kiss to her temple. “Happy New Year, honey.”

“Happy New Year.” She takes the wine from his hand, savoring the rich red. 

“Is David okay?” She smiles. She should have known that Clint would have seen her follow David into the kitchen. 

“Yeah, he was just chatting with Alexis.”

There’s a flicker of blue and black in the kitchen doorway and David and Patrick appear. Patrick is holding David’s hand and David is laughing, an open, relaxed laugh that Marcy can’t remember seeing before. She wants to freeze the moment, the look of radiant joy on David’s face, Patrick’s solid contentment, the way they’ve forgotten everyone else in the room. The moment breaks when Linda’s three-year-old grandson Mickey crashes into David. Marcy chuckles at the look of horror on David’s face as a pair of sticky hands steady themselves by grasping David’s skirted pants.

She looks back at Clint, his face is soft as he watches Patrick extract Mickey’s hands from David’s designer pants. 

“I still don’t understand his clothes.” There’s laughter in Clint’s voice as he repeats the inside joke. She laughs with him, knowing that if David could hear them, he would give them a lengthy explanation.

Patrick guides Mickey back to his mother before he presses a kiss to David’s cheek, presumably to make up for his recent trauma. David’s eyes are dancing, so Marcy thinks it will probably turn out okay.

“He can wear whatever he wants, as long as he puts that look on Patrick’s face.”

Clint pulls her close. “That’s the only thing that matters.”


End file.
